MS Office apps to get Web front ends

The plan to turn MS Office into a service is not a shock. Still, more details on the plan are good to know. At the Professional Developers Conference Microsoft demonstrated “Office Web”

applications, which will add a Web front end to the Office suite, while eliminating some features. It will operate similar to the way that Outlook Web Access makes Outlook available over the ‘net. Microsoft said that this feature will be available with Office 14 and Office Live, with a technical preview available later this year, but did not announce a specific ship date or pricing.

One question is how well Outlook Web Access will work with every browser. Will it be flawless in IE but less so in Firefox and even less so in Chrome? Microsoft has promised that future versions of IE will not force Web developers to fork code but it is less clear if it will make its own software as browser independent. It is also less clear if competitors like Google will work to make their browsers support Microsoft apps.

The news is promising for IT executives looking to reduce the burden of supporting software on individual PCs. Office Web Access will offer users a richer experience and more customization options than the apps currently available on Office Live Workspace, some analysts say. If Microsoft’s promised support of OpenId materializes, user logons/passwords could become easier to implement and support, too.

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Microsoft Office 2007 redesign: love it or hate it 10 questions for Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 guy, Jason Hermitage17 job-hunting resources for Windows prosUnder the hood of Hyper-V (master list of links).Library of Windows management tools from A Better Windows Worldall Microsoft Subnet bloggers.bi-weekly Microsoft newsletter. (Click on News/Microsoft News Alert.)

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